As evidenced in The Vanishing Children of Paris, the same situation can be handled and viewed differently based on one’s perspectives (everything is relative). Due to economic distress, many vagrants from all over France came trickling into Paris. This created a sense of insecurity and anxiety in Paris.
Order needed to be restored. The police believed disorder had to be “the work of malign forces infiltrating the social body in Paris.” Since it was rising amount of vagrants causing distress, the police came to the obvious logical conclusion of physically taking out people. For example, they sent innocent children playing on the streets to prison to set an “example,” and sent vagrants to America. As Mr. Yarnall stated, the police were patenting with broad strokes. Rumor spread like wildfire and the actions of the police added to the anxiety of the people.
This created a divide and distrust between those who were supposed to keep order and the people. As more people came into Paris, the anxiety reached a new temperature. While the police believed that the people were causing unrest, the people believed the police were causing distress. They believed order would be restored through violence, hence the rioting.
As Kat said, once the police’s actions began to affect and threaten the mass’ lives, they rose up in anger. “They were taking all sorts of people indiscriminately.”
The answer to the question who is disturbing the peace is different depending on who you ask. So, who is right? Who is our protagonist? As the police believed, “disorder cannot exist without someone being guilty of causing it.” As Becky said, each side had a little truth to them. “The real protagonist of the events had the usual myopic vision of those closely involved in a battle or rebellion and saw very little beyond their immediate surroundings.” Each side was narrow minded and could not see the other side or the big picture. The police were set on capturing children and the people were set on hurting the police.
How was King Louis XV handling the distress? Simply put, he didn’t. Much like in All Quite on the Western Front, the king treated the distress around him with a sense of aloofness. “At the end of this day of violence, the authorities seem at last to have realized the gravity of the situation. At Versailles the dic de Luynes, assiduous chronicler of the minutiae of court life, records the event- almost reluctantly- between the intrigues of the clergy and accounts of the King’s hunting: “There have also been several uprisings in Paris over the last few days…” Without an absolute decision, which one would think the absolutist ruler would provide, the chaos on the streets continued. One could not get a definite answer on the situation even when asking witnesses of riots. It seemed as if no one wanted to become involved in the situation. Paris was much like a person who contracted a disease, but was too afraid of the doctor to get it checked out or treated.
We also learned about the Big Three powers of Europe: Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Prussia, at this time, is consuming all the Germanic states into it’s own state. Austria is at the border of western and eastern Europe in what is left of the Habsburg empire. And Russia is constantly changing and creating different versions of the same state. The Ottomans are important because of how they affect Austria’s development. The Habsburg, Austrians, are experiencing both internal and external pressures. Surprise, surprise the nobility are causing internal pressures by continuing to exert too much influence and acting like a feudal nobility. External pressures are coming from the empire. This was both a good and bad thing. It was good because the Ottomans could be used as a glue that would unite the different nationalities in the Habsburg empire against a common enemy. On the other hand it was bad because, well, the empire was under attack.
As we can see from the disappearing children and the Habsburg vs. Ottoman empire situation, I am right:
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